Society has become extremely dependent upon computers and the electronic content that they contain. As used herein, the term electronic content is broadly defined to include any form or type information that may be electronically read by a computer. For example, the term electronic content includes, but is not limited to, emails, calendar information, word processing documents, pictures, news articles, television programming information, or any other type of information that may be electronically read by a computer. The electronic content may exist in a variety of different content formats, that includes but is not limited to HTML, XML, WML, Microsoft Word®, WordPerfect®, JPEG, GIF, or any other format that can be electronically read by a computer.
Recently, a movement has been made to allow users to remotely access this electronic content information through the use of “highly constrained” devices (e.g., cellular phones, Palm Pilots, PDAs, etc.). For example, Sinia Corporation has developed a product that provides users with the flexibility to remotely connect to a local network (for example, a company's private network) via a Highly Constrained device and to retrieve the user's email and calendar information from potentially anywhere in the world.
Currently, in addition to retrieving electronic content information, there is need to allow users to access the information that is associated with a link within electronic content. For example, in the Web environment, electronic content often includes links (often generally referred to a hypertext links) that are associated with other electronic content. By selecting a particular link within an electronic content, the user's browser automatically communicates with an Internet Domain Name Service (DNS server) to resolve the address of the electronic content and to request the content from a server that is associated with the resolved address.
However, if a link is associated with an electronic content whose address cannot be resolved by an Internet DNS server, for example electronic content that is stored on a local network, the user's browser will not be provided with the correct address of the electronic content and thus will have no way of retrieving the content.
For example, many companies maintain their own local networks, often referred to as local intranets. These local networks provide a means for managing and controlling access to the company's electronic content information from the outside world. For in many local networks, a local DNS server is used to dynamically allocate IP addresses for accessing the local servers that manage a company's electronic content information. Because the IP addresses are only known within the local network, a DNS server outside the local network cannot resolve the address of a link that is associated with an electronic content that is stored within one of the local network servers. Thus, if after remotely retrieving electronic content the user selects a link within the content that is associated with electronic content stored on a local network, the Internet DNS server will not be able to correctly resolve the address of that content, thus causing the user's browser to indicate that the electronic content could not be found or alternatively to provide other, incorrect content based on a “best” guess by the Internet DNS server.
Moreover, local network servers are often assigned local host names that are not known outside the local network. If a user using a highly constrained device selects a link that is associated with a local host name that is not known outside the local network, the Internet DNS server will again not be able to resolve the address of the link and therefore will not be able to retrieve the correct content.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for a mechanism that allows users to remotely access electronic content and to select links within the content to retrieve locally stored content that is associated with a company's local network.